Slams the REBOOT button on today.

This weather is bananas. High heat and humidity does not make me happy. And with all the pollen in the air my fate was to have an asthma attack this morning as I put the kids on the bus. Now it is + 75 degrees in here with windows shut and curtains drawn. It is sweltering in here and I'm trying to summon up the energy to get some dishes done.

Yesterday wasn't quite as bad but I was busy running errands all day. Still, I managed to finish the alpaca yarn scarf that I was knitting. This was fiber that I spun on my Navajo spindle and put aside for months unsure what to do with it. Well, let's call it a year, if we're being more accurate time-wise. It is grey and a very chunky heavy weight yarn. It will make for a very warm scarf when the weather gets cold again.

All this humidity has put spinning on hold until we get the air conditioner running. I have been debating spinning silk but my hands are rather dry. The irony of dry skin problems while you are breathing soup is almost as painful as the breathing process right now. I have decided to start finishing up projects that I had sitting around waiting to be worked on. This lead to my working on the scarf I started back in February (the alpaca one). I finished the shawl I had started last month. It was difficult going at first because I couldn't really see what I was doing. I'm debating if I'm going to add any sort of fringe or anything on the narrow ends of it or not.

I also finished up last week the huge granny square scrap afghan I was making for Beloved's birthday present. I made some good progress on the shawl I am calling amythest. It is in shades of purple going to white. It is a more shaped shawl than what I have made in the past. It is a heptagon (7 sided shape) with a split on one of the corners.Once I had it large enough to sit comfortably on my shoulders, I have begun working in straight rows to make it hang straight down from that point. I'm not going to make it any larger in diameter. This is not going to be a very large shawl. Probably more of a shawlette that reaches to my elbows.

I have a tablecloth that I'm crocheting out of the teal thread I won in the silent auction at spinning guild last January. That is light enough that I can work on it despite the heat. It is, however, rather tedious. I am still on the boring part of the pattern, though. I'll probably be working on that a bit later today when it is too hot to do much of anything at all. Right now, I am going to go wash some dishes, make some gazpacho, and set up some tea to steep in the sunshine on the back deck. Sitting in front of the fan had something of a restorative effect, I suppose.

Monday Menu

I am having an odd day. Mood started out pretty awful. Then I was angry at past issues. So I burned my anger out doing things like scrubbing the tub and washing a ton of dishes. I'm still angry but it is not like it was earlier where I was contemplating going and getting into a fight with someone. Now, I'm calm and my anger is much calmer. Like being angry that I dropped a stitch when I was knitting something. My brain is weird. Hopefully this means that my mood is going to be better now.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: cereal & fruit me: scrambled egg, sausage, avacado pudding, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: pizza leftovers & pasta salad Me: leftovers	hamburgers carrot salad
Tues	kids: waffles me: avacado pudding boiled egg, toast & butter coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwich, chips hard boiled egg, cheese Me: soup & salad	ground turkey tacos refried beans salsa & guacamole
Wed	kids: cereal & fruit me: blueberry-egg bake, avacado pudding & butter coffee	Kids: school Hubby: burrito bowl Me: taco salad	homemade pizza & salad
Thurs	kids: waffles me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & butter coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: cobb salad	sloppy joes cauliflower rice veggie sticks & dip
Fri	kids: cereal me: mason jar omlette & avacado pudding & butter coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	chicken korma cauliflower rice naan kids: ez mac
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	spaghetti & meatballs

Friday Fiction: The Time Machine Is Broken

I wound the key on the mechanism. The quaint sounds of a music box played with the whirring of gears and uncoiling of springs as counterpoint to it. Then the music skipped and began to play again from the beginning as the key twisted backwards. Father did not tell me what to do if this happened. I watched with some curiosity as the music than began to play backwards. The music skipped and the mechanism whirred somewhat louder than before.

I tapped upon the brass back plate wherein the key fitted. Something within rattled. The key began to turn in the proper direction but the music was silent. And then I looked up and saw something most curiously disturbing. Everyone in the station around me had stopped moving. A child hung in midair suspended by possibly some gossamer thread I could not see but of incredible strength. I moved to get up and discovered that my body did not obey my will. I cast my gaze down to my right hand resting beside the device.

It felt as though an incredible weight was upon me, thrusting my hand down into the very wood of the counter it sat upon. Though my limbs could not obey me, my eyes could. I looked over at the device. The key turned slower as that crushing weight became unbearable. My vision began to blur and become spotted. Desperately, I tried to lift my hand to wind the key back to its proper position.

If it were possible, I believe that sweat would have been profuse upon my brow. Instead, everything became cool and colors grew dim. Oh, Father, what should I do? As the key's turning came to a stop, silence and a terrible cold overcame the whole of reality. All was dark. I had no voice with which to cry out for help. I had no body to move. Only one thing remained, my awareness and memories. But even the memories are faded.

Fiber fluff: Working on Presents.

I have been working on presents for Beloved's birthday next week. I finished the box and handed it to him night before last. Today, I just finished the scrap granny square afghan for him to use when he decides to nap on the couch in cool weather. The thing needs a good wash but it is finally done.

I just have two more things to make and/or acquire and I'll be finished. I figure four presents over the week leading up to his birthday means it is no big deal if I get the exact date wrong, again.

I am making slow but steady progress combing fiber and spinning it. M.K. sent me a wonderful rainbow of blue faced leicester locks that I have been using my mother in law's viking style combs to process it. I'm almost finished with the white. Next is going to be the bright sunshine yellow. The grey alpaca fiber that I was going to spin on my navajo spindle is going to wait for fall. That stuff felts so easily, I'm going to stick with my current project. That is a silk-merino blend in all the colors of storm clouds. I'm spinning it on my small turkish spindle. I haven't decided how I'm going to be plying it. I still have the rest of the braid to spin into singles before I have to worry about plying though.

I'm waaay behind on the sheep study stuff. I'm going to try to wash fiber this weekend if the weather isn't too bad. My hope is I can wash it and then dry it in lingere bags out in the sun. Keep each bag labeled and I should be able to tell which sample is which. I think last breed we got samples from was Hog Island. I have at least six samples to wash and then comb or card depending on the staple length.

I have decided that I'm going to make notecards with the details that I learn in the spinning process for the different samples. On the notecard will be a sample of the cleaned fleece showing staple length (which will also be noted). Then there will be a tiny sample of singles and a plied yarn made from each sample. Notation will include the weight of the spindle it was spun on, wraps per inch, and total yardage I got out of the sample. I'm thinking that the final skeins of each sample will be knitted together into a shawl. Just a basic triangular shawl.

Menu for the Week of 5/14/18

The last several days have been busy. Just the usual household stuff going on. I am not entirely sure what to say about how things are going on the diabetes front. I've been attempting a ketogenic diet while waiting for my health insurance company to approve a medication they denied earlier. This has not been a pleasant time for me. I've found somethings I have enjoyed (zucchini hash and butter coffee) and some that I can tolerate (egg 'muffins'). It is still hard and I am still spending a good amount of time feeling hungry. I don't know if it is because I'm eating less carbs, because of the diabetes, or because of my other medications. I honestly don't know.

I'm trying not to set myself up for cooking three separate meals at a given time. It is leaning towards that happening. Just because what I am doing is so radically different from everyone else in the household.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs w/ bacon & fruit	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: cereal & fruit me: zucchini hash w/ egg butter coffee	Kids: school Hubby: noodle bowl with muffin Me: leftovers	hamburgers carrot salad
Tues	kids: french toast sticks me: mason jar omelette & butter coffee	Kids: school Hubby: chinese leftovers Me: soup & salad	ground turkey tacos refried beans salsa & guacamole
Wed	kids: cereal & fruit me: blueberry-egg bake & 1/2 muffin	Kids: school Hubby: burrito bowl Me: taco salad	meatball stroganoff & salad
Thurs	kids: french toast sticks me: zucchini hash w/ eggs	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: meatballs & zoodles	broccoli salad chicken salad sandwiches potato salad
Fri	kids: cereal me: mason jar omlette & 1/2 muffin	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	pad thai stir fry & spring rolls kids: ez mac
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	sloppy joes cauliflower rice veggie sticks & dip

Monday Menu: Week of 5/6/18

The menu plan for this week has me eating some type of egg thing every blasted morning. I'm not thrilled with this, but so far it is the lowest carb form of breakfast I can come up with. I'm going to try making chia seed 'pudding' tonight to see if I can tolerate the stuff. If so, it will be added into the menu as per needed. Sunday went off the rails menu-wise because my kitchen was a disaster. As such, breakfast was cereal for the kids and half a banana and some meatballs for me. Lunch was foraging for leftovers in the fridge. Dinner was salad and a sandwich. Well, sort of. Beloved didn't have the salad part and the kids refused any of it in favor of macaroni and cheese.

I'm trying really hard to do this low carb meal planning for myself and avoid having to make three meals for any given meal. It's been challenging. The hardest part of going really low carb is the fact that I feel hungry all the time and I'm finding myself struggling not to skip meals. Sounds contradictory, but feeling hungry all the time is triggering my almost anorexia behaviors. It's been pretty awful. I've been emotionally a mess through out all of this.

I'll find away to make sense of it all, somehow. I tried butter coffee today. I'm struggling to see what the big difference between putting cream and butter in your coffee is. I'll be trying it with a little coconut oil in it tomorrow. Who knows, maybe this could do me some good. I've been limiting stuff like red meat so I'm not getting much in the way of cholesterol from meats. But the eggs every day.. that might be problematic. I don't know.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs w/ bacon & fruit	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: cereal & fruit me: egg-bacon 'muffins' w/ toast and sugar free jam	Kids: school Hubby: noodle bowl, cornbread muffin, boiled egg Me: leftovers	hamburgers apple salad
Tues	kids: french toast sticks me: zucchini hash with egg and toast	Kids: school Hubby: chili & cornbread Me: soup & salad	pulled pork tacos refried beans salsa & guacamole
Wed	kids: cereal & fruit me: blueberry-egg bake & 1/2 muffin	Kids: school Hubby: Cuban sandwich bean burrito bowl (small) Me: taco salad	meatball stroganoff & salad
Thurs	kids: french toast sticks me: egg-bacon 'muffins' w/ 1/2 muffin	Kids: school Hubby: garlic bread pizza Me: leftovers	sweet-n-sour meatballs w/ barley tropical fruit salad kids: pasta & meatballs
Fri	kids: cereal me: blueberry-egg bake & toast	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	pork korma naan cucumber salad kids: ez mac or sandwiches
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers	rotisserie chicken roasted baby potatoes roasted brussels sprouts or broccoli

Menu plan, posting about menu planning, and deviating from the plan.

I have a new blog. I'm posting about the stuff I do to run my household. A lot of what I know I learned from my late grandmother and my mother. I have also been something of a nerd about it and researched ways to make things more effective. I may also be one of the few weirdos you know that will sit down and read a cookbook. (This past time has resulted in my learning a lot more about the culture of the 1950s than I really wanted. I'll write about that at a later time.)

This week's post was about menu planning. Then I deviated from my menu plan for this week today. As I mentioned in the post I linked to, I forgot to get out the chicken for dinner last night. So, when it was around noon, I checked on how my bird was thawing out. It was still a frozen brick. It was a slightly squishy potential murder weapon. Instead of roast chicken for dinner, it was sandwiches and soup.

The menu I had planned for this week was pretty basic.

Pizza night on Sunday, as per ususal.

Hamburgers and salad on Monday, again as per ususal.

Tuesday was tacos, but I had a taco salad because carbs in the tortillas were over 15 grams.

Today was supposed to be roast chicken with barley salad. It was instead sandwiches for the kids and meatball soup for Beloved and I.

Tomorrow is scheduled for split pea soup. I will be making chicken then because the damn bird will finally be thawed enough to go in the crock pot.

Friday is going to be pork korma for Beloved and I with some naan. The kids are getting pork chops and mac & cheese.

Saturday is a mystery. I had nothing figured out. If things go how I suspect they will, I'll probably be whipping something up out of leftovers. Like chicken stew. Or maybe chicken salad sandwiches, depending on if it is stupidly hot or not. The weather has me confused.

Arthritis and allergies, go away please.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the allergies have been pretty bad around my place. The boys are both having symptoms and my sinuses have been nothing but trouble. On particularly bad days, Beloved gets the sniffles too. With the weather being all haywire and swinging between snow, rain, dry but cold, and dry with some seasonal warmth, my joints are not happy. Nor are my ribs or my shoulder from when I fell on the snow shovel.

It's made sleeping difficult. My knees randomly deciding they're going to lock up or give out hasn't helped me get much done today either. I would be thrilled if I woke up tomorrow and I didn't feel so awfully stiff. I think I could tolerate the sinus stuff if I could just get things done. I spent much of today trying to get things done but my knees kept acting up. Not being sure if your knee is going to drop you on the ground tends to encourage you to sit down before you fall down.

I guess this is part of the price of getting to see just shy of 39 years worth of sunrises. I thought I'd be older before I was this uncomfortable. Of course, I have had arthritis since I was a kid, so maybe I'm lucky it wasn't this bad before now. I don't know. I just know that I'm uncomfortable and I can't take a lot of the over the counter stuff for various reasons. Ibuprofen worked great until I developed an allergy to it. Now I have to be careful taking naproxen or I am going to have lots of hearburn problems due to how it interacts with the laundry list of other stuff I'm on. Aspirin doesn't do much for me. Tylenol works half as well as naproxen but it's hard on my stomach if I take it too many times in the day. (As in, more than three times a day and I get the wicked heartburn like I do if I take naproxen with out food or right before I go to bed.)

It's all a string of minor annoyances. I try not to blather and complain about them. Today was a series of minor annoyances getting in the way of getting stuff done. Hence my bit of a rant here. I feel like today was a Monday on Thursday. At least the kids had a good day at school. And the parent teacher conference went well over the phone. I just have a kitchen full of dirty dishes that I must scrub.

Screw that guy anyways.

So, I was going to be staff at a local paper. I was all set to do it and then red flags started waving. No payment. No indication of any reimbursement of any kind for writing articles. The chief editor has a history in the community of being a pushy guy to the point he was invited not to be part of the library's board of directors. And, it turns out, I met this guy before and didn't realize it. The person who set off my creep radar at the writer's group? Yep, same person.

I turned down his offer to make me staff. Did it with plenty of professional sounding buzzwords. Because this guy like buzzwords. I've taken my concept of a weekly column at a local little paper and turned it into yet another blog. Here's the link. I'm going to post weekly and it's going to be things like household management stuff that I've learned over the last several years as a housewife and some recipes at random.

I'm starting with weekly posts so that I don't get overwhelmed in my blog efforts. My thinking is to eventually monetize that blog and keep this one more personal. I'm in the process of shutting down a separate blog project that is not working out for me. I am also in the process of backing up another blog project and using it a little differently. A lot of housekeeping on the digital front is happening. My vision is clearer which means I'm trying to get back to work on stuff.

My menu post will be going up in about an hour. I have a few other things to take care of first.

Crochet my anxiety away.

I can see a bit better now. As such, I have been crocheting less by feel and actually seeing what I'm working with. It makes it a lot easier. I'm almost finished with the scrap yarn blanket. I have about a foot to add on to it. Since that is nearly complete and Cuddle Bear's hat is almost complete, I have started a new project.

Using sport weight acrylic from Red Heart that wasn't super scratchy, I have started a shawl. It is going to be a little bigger than the last time I made this very basic shawl. It is 60 stitches in half double crochet until it is as long as it is for you to reach from fingertip to fingertip with your arms spread wide. The last time I made this pattern, I was in a state of crisis. I worked on it with woolen yarn, that soon was felted by the kind staff at the hospital where I stayed. I am still a bit irate that they ignored me when I told them my shawl was wool and they were surprised that it shrank.

I only have the first ten rows done. When I get it finished, I'll post a picture up.

Monday Menu & thoughts.

Here's this week's menu:

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs w/ bacon & fruit	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: cereal & fruit me: cereal, fruit hard boiled egg	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	hamburgers carrot salad tater tots
Tues	kids: french toast sticks me: oatmeal w/ fried egg & bacon	Kids: school Hubby: beef noodle bowl Me: soup	turkey tacos salsa & fixings mexican rice
Wed	kids: cereal & fruit me: cereal, fruit & walnuts	Kids: school Hubby: burrito bowl hard boiled egg Me: taco salad	spaghetti & meatballs w/ salad & garlic bread
Thurs	kids: french toast sticks me: oatmeal w/ yogurt & bacon	Kids: school Hubby: garlic bread pizza Me: leftovers	kids: ez mac salad and/or leftovers
Fri	kids: cereal me: poached egg w/ fruit & toast	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: sandwich & salad	kids: ez mac or sandwiches leftovers
Sat	pancakes, bacon & fruit	leftovers	ham, roasted potatoes, green beans/salad

My day has been fits and starts of activity. I have gotten most of my to do list done. What's left are small tasks that I can complete in the evening. I discovered that in losing weight, my shoe size has changed by half a size. Those snow boots that were too tight at the beginning of the season fit me properly now. Oddly, however, my feet hurt like I've been standing on them all day. I don't think I spent that much time on my feet. I don't know if it is the fact my shoes are the wrong size, I don't have enough support in them, or if there's something else entirely different going on. But my achey feet are not making me happy. They're annoying me almost as much as the effects of drinking tons of water today.

Today was a tough day diet-wise. I had a small breakfast that was mostly protein and the required number of carbs. I was still hungry, but 1/3 cup of cheerios really isn't that satisfying so it made sense. I made myself wait until three hours later to eat a small snack of a cheese stick. When I was looking up possible salad recipes for dinner tonight (I wound up making a cucumber onion salad and eating a third of a head of romaine lettuce.) I saw that one of the goals with diabetic diets was to have three meals a day and a snack at bed time. I felt somewhat demoralized by this bit of research. I have been hungry all day. It made me sad to see that I apparently should be feeling this way as per the 'experts'. I did my best to stick to the 30 carbs per meal rule and 11 to 15 carbs for a snack. I think I did a reasonable job of it. I think.

I'm still trying to figure out this stuff about carb exchanges and the wonky math that goes into finding out how much makes one serving. I was before doing the 'plate portions' with a 9 inch plate. After being so hungry, I moved back to a regular sized dinner plate and made 2/3rds of my plate vegetables.The scale didn't move much when I started doing that, but I found that I felt less hungry and my pants size started to change. I am now looking at the very small portions that equate to single servings and realizing that the 9 inch plate makes the portions look larger. The care coordinator told me that 30 carbs can mean two starch servings. The difficulty is everybody has different measurements for what is a serving on their packaging. And the serving sizes all have different amounts of carbs.

So, I have started a new binder of recipes that I can eat with out worrying too much about it. Just prepare everything as per recipe and I can eat the serving size listed with the amount of carbs and everything listed. It equates to a good amount of research that needs done. I've a section just for notes and I'm going to be making a list of carbs per measured amount for ingredients in that list. Thus, if I am having a salad with two tablespoons of homemade ranch dressing on it, I will know it has 5 carbs and point whatever protein plus whatever amount of fats because I will have done the math already and have it noted down. One problem with this process, honestly, is I am overwhelmed by how much I don't know.

I was originally planning on using this cute little binder with the roses all over it as a mini-home binder. Not a new cookbook. I have a shelf full of cookbooks. I didn't think I needed another one. Then I got this diagnosis and found the diabetes cookbook at the library. As I was reading it and I saw the notation about the recipes, I realized that having a cookbook like that with different recipes would be helpful for me. So, I'm making my list of foods with all their data. And copying a few choice recipes from the diabetes cookbook. At the back of the notes/reference section, I'll be making a list of what cookbooks I reference. At the front of this thing, I have a page where I note my dietary goals. It's a really rough looking page because I don't have a complete picture of what I need to be doing here. We're still figuring that out.

I feel like I'm stumbling around in the dark. It's cold and unpleasant outside. My feet hurt. I'm hungry. And I still can't see straight, despite the fact that I'm taking a mouthful of pills every morning and afternoon to correct various issues that contributed to this problem. I'm trying really, really hard not to fall back into the starve-binge eating pattern I had as a kid. This measuring everything and constant hunger is making that difficult. But, at least Cuddle Bear's orthodontist appointment went ok and my parents-in-law were able to help us out with getting to it and minding Snuggle Bug.

Oiy, this is insane.

I am still not feeling well. I have a new medication that I can't remember the name of but I keep wanting to call it Gympie Gympie. I'm not thrilled to have another pill in my pill sorter. At the same time, if it works to bring my blood sugar down and get my pancreas working properly, I'll take the hit to my pride. I haven't much of a choice, to be honest. My vision is still awful. I 'hacked' my eyeballs by adding a pair of reading glasses to my normal glasses. I can see almost normally this way, if I look through the part of the glasses that is specifically for reading and close up work. Along with the vision being off kilter, I'm having a constant headache.

Apparently this is because high blood sugar sucks water out of other parts of your body, like your eyes and ears. So, my eyes are literally shriveling up because my blood sugar is high. It was only slightly less horrifying and repulsive to type than it was to hear the description. The solution to this is drink tons of water, exercise, and eat protein. I'm doing my best to get that going. I'm presently taking a break to let lunch get into my system before I do my afternoon exercises. I'd be walking right now but it is raining and I can't see across the room. Going out for a walk wouldn't be the best idea under these conditions.

I am trying to make sense of food options. This has been nothing but confusion. I think I've got some answers now. I'm not entirely sure what I can do to make my diet changes work for the kids and their food issues. Dan's willing to work with me and give making the diet changes a try. Our goal is for me not to have to make three separate meals when ever I am cooking. I already have several days where I am making two. It's hard to find the energy to fight the kids over what they're going to eat for dinner when I know that the food is going to be a change to their routine.

Adjusting to a new routine is going to be the hard part here. My mealtimes just got more regimented. This is less because of the fact that the people who are handling my care advised it and more because I have enough self-awareness to realize that if I restrict my diet and don't make sure I am eating regularly, I'm going to start starving myself. That's what started off the almost anorexic thing when I was a kid, restricting my diet. It's been a hard two weeks because I am very strongly tempted to just starve myself.

I'm not sure how I'm going to keep that at bay long term. I am pretty sure that a practice of prepping meals to correct measurements and eating at regular times every day is going to go a long way towards helping me not starve myself. The stress levels thing, however, is a different problem to solve. Again, I am hoping that the changes I'm making activity-wise are going to help with that. If you're tired from exercising, it's hard to get the energy to do stupid things.

Stupid diabetes, die in a fire.

It was a rough weekend. Hell, last week was rough. The kids were on break and I was trying to act as normal as possible. They are of mixed feelings about my having to check my blood sugar regularly. The eldest still feels that blood is disgusting. However, they both find the tech that is the meter pretty cool. The youngest wants to have one because he thinks it is awesome and wants to 'measure how much blood' he has. They have noticed, however, things like I didn't have the same thing for dinner as them most of the time or I was eating less than usual.

It's pretty frustrating. I am trying to figure out how much of what equals a correct portion size for me. I think I'm going to need Beloved to copy pages out of this cookbook I signed out from the library to give me a guide on this. Because I have gone to websites, the booklet they gave me at the doctor's office, and off of what the packages read. Between all of them (including the cookbook), I get different numbers. I'm going around hungry all the time and doing my best to ignore it. About when I am successful, it is time to eat a meal. Then I am eating like I am starving, though I am carefully measuring out servings and limiting them. I just wolf them down. After that, I have to force myself not to eat more.

I'm going back to old habits and some of those habits are not good for me. One of them is if I feel hungry and it isn't meal time, have a drink of some sort. I've been drinking lots of water. I allow myself a snack between meals but it is approximately in the middle of the times between meals and it is a struggle not to inhale the food. I'm finding myself making my portion sizes smaller and smaller. You'd say that was a good thing, except if I keep this up I'll fall back into the semi-anorexic eating habits I had when I was younger.

The constant hunger is already enough to evoke a pretty consistent state of mild dissociation. I find myself struggling with the urge to 'sneak eat' food and feeling guilty when I do eat a meal. I was going to go over all of this and the stress of it all with my therapist tomorrow. There is one additional problem, however, my vision has gone funny. I have the screen set to 200% increased font sizes and I'm still dealing with blurry vision unless I'm looking through the portion of my bifocals with higher correction. I can't drive when I can't see across the room.

Looking across the street out my window, the houses across the way where I usually can see siding are a solid color and the tree branches are blurry. It's not because the window or my glasses are dirty. It's a new development over the last week. And it scares me. I tell myself that if I can be patient, Wednesday we will have some answers and a plan of action. It's hard to believe that right now, even though it is the truth.

I'd be marveling at how fast this is happening, but I think I know what's going on. I think my pancreas is just trying its hardest to produce enough insulin and effective insulin but it's taken too much of a beating from being on antipsychotics and a host of other medications for my mental health issues. Throw into the mix I have problems with insulin resistance due to PCOS, a history of gestational prediabetes, and a family history of diabetes, and it was just a time bomb waiting to go off. I just thought I had ten more years before this happened.

I just find myself hoping that we get this under control. And that the health insurance company will cover whatever the doctor prescribes. Along with the hope that we can afford it. I already am concerned that the cost of testing strips and lancets is going to be a problem. Anxiety is a bitch. Because all of this has my anxiety all over the place, kinda like my blood sugar, it's constantly high but it swings between near panic attacks and that state of you're so anxious that you're apparently calm.

Wait, wut?

Only thirty posts to 1k posts? Damn, that's motivation right there! Now it's 29 posts. Next task, work on my planner and then a few pages on revisions to prep an eBook for publication. I'll post more about the eBook thing later. Right now, I'm getting a headache so I should drink some water and eat some sort of light snack.

Cold-brewed Chai Coffee.

Rocking the vintage 90s floral and chemistry mug!

I'm still pretty dependent upon my coffee to get through the day. I have given up coffee creamer because of all the sugar in it. I have given up on the mocha coffee mixes, because of sugar. I'm pretty sure that I am going to have to give up mulled cider for the same reasons. As such, I have pulled out my french press and I'm cold brewing coffee. For some reason, I can drink cold brewed coffee black with out any problem.

Today, I am drinking chai coffee. This did not involve adding a tea bag of chai spiced tea to the pot. In the press with the coffee grounds, I added 6 cardamom pods lightly crushed, a 1/4 teaspoon of garam marsala, and a generous pinch of anise. (If you are keeping score, you may recall I have a loathing for the flavor of black licorice, which is derived from anise.) I then filled the press with cold water and let it steep over night.

In the morning, viola! Cold coffee with some flavor. I forgot how well cardamom plays with coffee. I was surprised to find that the anise added a floral note that wasn't overly sweet. That cloying sweetness has always been my problem with licorice.

On the health front, I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing. My dosage of metformin has been doubled, again, because of how high my blood sugar numbers are. I've been told that the diet I have been following is really healthy for someone with diabetes and given a few suggestions on how to improve it when I was on the phone with the care coordinator for my doctor's office. She said that my efforts to work on daily exercise and yoga can only help. She actually said that she was impressed with how much I was doing before the diabetes diagnosis and that it was likely the reason why I wasn't worse off.

I got a gentle 'it may be your pancreas can't produce enough insulin' when I inquired if there was anything more I could do. I call that a soft 'if you don't respond to the metformin, we're going to have to give you insulin because your insurance company are dicks and not approving the medication we wanted you on to begin with.' I am resigned to this and realize that the damage to my pancreas is due to being on multiple antipsychotic medications for the last eight years. (At various times on two different ones at the same time.) Put that together with established insulin resistance and gestational pre-diabetes, it was just a time bomb.

Did yoga today before the weather hit. I think this was a good thing because my joints are really not happy right now. I did my walking in the apartment because it's 31 degrees F out there. As I was walking, I did my arm exercises with the super light free weights we've got. Tomorrow, I'll be wearing the ankle weights as I walk indoors. Now I'm watching the kids 'clean' as I type this and debate just how exactly I'm going to manage dinner. It's not entirely a case of making three meals for dinner, but it feels like that. Yay anxiety.

WTF IS THIS?!

Last Friday, that's the Friday before the chocolate extravaganza known as Easter, I got diagnosed with diabetes. I've been in low key panic since then. Putting together the menu and the shopping list for this week caused a legit panic attack. I've been keeping a food log in a more disciplined and detailed fashion over the last several days.

This includes how much water I drink, as exact amounts of what I eat at what times, and my blood sugar levels before and two hours after eating. I have also dramatically changed what I eat. Where this time last week I was eating a big bowl of oatmeal in the morning with a handful of walnuts, raisins, and a generous portion of maple syrup, this morning I had a half cup of oatmeal with a few dozen chopped walnuts on top and some sugar substitute. My blood sugar was still obnoxiously high, but not as bad as it would have been if I ate the same breakfast as last Tuesday.

I always knew the risk for diabetes was there. I honestly was expecting it to happen at some point. But I thought that point was about ten years down the road. I also was very frustrated because I have been putting in a lot of work over the last year to change my diet to something healthier and get more exercise. My doctor said that this is the reason why I am not far worse off. It was only vaguely reassuring.

They're stressing diet and exercise. I understand this. At the same time, I can't help the panic that I have because diet and exercise didn't prevent it from happening. I'm on a higher dosage of metformin now. I'm titrating up to a more effective level for someone with type 2 diabetes. They were going to put me on to an additional medication to help my body make more effective insulin. The health insurance company denied me. The doctor's office argued with them. They still said no.

So, I'm here trying to figure out what I can eat. I'm honestly terrified right now that if I screw up I'm going to die. I am also afraid that all of this business with food logging and tracking blood sugar is going to reboot my latent tendencies toward anorexia. I've struggled today with hunger pains and forcing myself not to eat. It was too familiar and distressing.

On top of all this, my post-traumatic stress disorder is acting up with emotional flashbacks at random moments because times of hunger when I am not 'allowed' to eat are triggers. It wasn't good in my youth. Testing my blood sugar in public yesterday when my youngest had a dentist appointment was equally distressing. I'm not entirely sure how to handle this. To say the least, this will be coming up when I go to my therapy appointment next week.

And I'm attempting Camp NaNoWriMo this year.

It all started with hamburger buns.

You know your week is going to be surreal when you buy a package of hamburger buns and discover that they're now hot dog rolls when you get them out. Receipt said hamburger buns. Cashier  commented on how hamburgers sounded awesome and they were due for a lunch break. They WERE hamburger buns. Then, by way of mysterious forces, they became hot dog rolls. And my 8 year old son was most upset that we were having hamburgers for dinner Monday night instead of hot dogs.

Tuesday was deceptively normal and almost dull. I actually got a bunch of things done now that my ribs are well enough I can go grocery shopping or lift a bag of laundry. Wednesday was busy. Monday and Wednesday were dentist visits for the boys. The orthodontist said that we're doing well with the spacer for Cuddle Bear. Then Snuggle Bug had his visit with the regular dentist for a cleaning and did awesome. The only problem that he had was the fact that he couldn't quite figure out how to play Super Mario on their game system for the kids in the waiting room.

Wednesday was a day that Beloved's brother came to visit. That was nice too. It was good to have tea and chat about pretty much everything. I told him the secret to Apple Pie Moonshine. He was thrilled. And then I made the best damn roast chicken I have so far. If you are going to roast your chicken, do it on top of sweet potatoes. It was AMAZING! And seriously put some cilantro inside the bird. It didn't come out tasting like soap at all. (To me, cooked cilantro tastes like soap, fresh not so much. Beloved enjoys the stuff, so I try to make things with it from time to time. I used the leftovers from making Mexican rice to go with the tacos on Tuesday.)

Yesterday is just a blur. I don't really remember much of the day because I slept for about half of it. Wednesday night, I had a migraine that lasted through the night and partly into Thursday morning. So, part of my sense of time being off is because of that. I woke up from my nap Thursday thinking it was Friday, next week.

Today was pretty quiet. I haven't been as productive on the writing front as I want to be. But I did get a bunch of housework, a scarf, and some mending done. So, I wasn't completely wasting my day. Aside from that, I have no discovered that my body aches in more places since my fall in January when the weather changes. I'm not really thrilled with this development. It'd be easier if it wasn't my ribs.

no menu this week

It's chaos! Chaos is on the menu!

Well, no, not really. I'm just too lazy to get it off the fridge and type it up. Monday was burger night as per usual. Today was taco night, as per ususal. I think tomorrow will be some kind of casserole that the kids will actually eat. Thursday is just random whatever I throw together. I've kinda given up on a theme for that day this week. I was going to make sweet and sour pork roast but hubby got a bbq pork loin roast so, I guess that's what's for dinner.

My mood is fluctuating. I think it is because I'm in pain right now. The weather shifted and my back hurts. Time change didn't really do me any favors either, to be honest. I'm kinda dreading my therapy appointment tomorrow. At the same time, however, I know it is good and necessary. So I'm not going to call off, unless the weather is so bad they cancel school. I doubt that will happen, though.

So tired of this.

I'm not well. I'm tired of not being well. I'm frustrated and angry with the situation. But I'm emotionally exhausted because of the situation. So I find myself just staring numbly at things.

On the plus side, however, I have more energy and more days are 5/10 of late. I think I may finally be on the upswing out of the depression. Now if my ribs could just be healed up already and my joints stop hating me.

Nope, still not better yet.

When I saw the doctor a few weeks ago, he and I agreed that if I wasn't feeling better I should come back in. It was about my fall in January. We figured it was a 50% chance that I had bruised my ribs or fractured one. Deciding that since the course of treatment was the same either way, I didn't go for x-rays. So, here I am at the point when I should be feeling healthy and hale, in moderate pain with out Aleve and it gets worse when I work the muscles on my right side. Lifting a full gallon of milk is uncomfortable but anything more still hurts.

I guess I fractured something. I have a follow up appointment scheduled on the 6th. This will be one of the things I bring up. I'm rather vexed because it is difficult to go about my daily tasks with only my off hand for heavy work. You can't lift a basin full of water with just one hand and pour it effectively. Well, you could pour it but have no control over it. Laundry is just in bags about because lifting and moving it around is really hard unless I am doing a few items at a time.

I'm frustrated and feeling like I'm not doing enough. I am in that situation my tarot cards warned me about in December. I am the Hanged Man and the 5 of Swords. I'm in a point of stasis and it is driving me half mad with boredom. To top it off, I am struggling to focus enough to get things done because I keep getting distracted by all the other stuff that NEEDS to get done. (Emphasis by my anxiety.)

So, what do you do when you can't keep fighting? I guess it is surrender or attack in the opposite direction. But retreat isn't exactly an option here. I suppose it is surrender. One of the few benefits out of this mess is that my posture has improved. The only way I am comfortable is if I sit or stand with a properly erect spine. I can only lie on my left side, which has helped some with the heartburn issues, I guess. I can't do my morning yoga and, strangely, I miss it. I can't go walking of late between the weather and discovering that if I have to use my cane for a significant period of time, my ribs hurt. (My knees have been really bad this week.)

I know there's some kind of lesson here. I'm not sure exactly how to apply it or just what it is. Fighting this and attempting to be a stoic about it all is just causing real pain here. So, I'm going to stop doing that. I don't know what to do, though. This is all very disconcerting for so many reasons.